IMA Asia :: International Market Assessment Asia

IMA Asia helps clients monitor and assess political, economic and commercial developments across Asia, and to integrate the key insights into their operational and strategic business plans. We count many of the world's largest multinationals and industry leaders amongst our clients. Our service is provided by way of regional forecasting conferences, peer group briefings, partner forums, research assistance, and in-house presentations. All meetings are backed by our range of regular publications and Excel workbooks, with hundreds of charts and lines of data, available via the members' area of our website.



Richard Martin has over two decades of experience in analysis, research, publishing, and consulting in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to establishing IMA Asia, Richard served as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Director for Southeast Asia based in Singapore, having joined the unit’s Asian operations in Hong Kong in 1980. During his time as Director, Richard set up the regional office in the city and built briefing programs with associates in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines. From 1982-1985, Richard was Director of Asia Pacific Consulting & Research based in Hong Kong. Richard presents to boards of multinationals on a regular basis and speaks at numerous forums each year, presenting the regional outlook and the implications for corporate strategy. From 1998 to 2000, Richard was one of the lead speakers for Investment 2000, the investment arm of the Sydney Olympic Games, speaking at more than 40 conferences in 22 countries. From 1994 to 1997, he contributed to the national debate on industry and investment policy in Australia with a series of reports, including Make or Break (1997) and Australia’s Foreign Investment Challenge (1996). Richard is the editor of the monthly Asia Pacific Executive Brief (Asia Brief), and most other IMA Asia publications. Richard holds an Honours Degree in Politics from Sydney University and a Masters Degree in Asian Area Studies from London University (LSE and SOAS).




Christopher Nailer is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Business and Economics, at The Australian National University (ANU), Canberra. He specialises in international management and strategy, with a focus on the issues affecting companies operating in the Asia Pacific. During 2007 and 2008, Chris was the director of the MBA Program at the ANU. He is also an Associate Director of IMA Asia in Sydney advising multinational companies on their Asia Pacific operations. Chris runs regional management and strategy workshops for IMA Asia and contributes to the production of IMA’s Asian Issues Management Papers. Chris has many years of experience as consultant, advisor and commentator on Asia; from 1997 to 2002, he was Director of Advisory Services and Regional Economist with the Economist Group in Singapore, where he provided analysis, briefings and advice to the regional heads of many leading global corporations through two major cycles – the Asia crisis and the dot.com boom-bust-recovery. He launched a weekly crisis update called Asia Alert and developed and chaired the Economist’s Heads of Asia Pacific Operations Roundtables. He also led two major projects on the internationalisation of the IT sector for the Singapore government. Chris holds a Masters degree in Asian Studies from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales.



Glenn Levine plays a key role in IMA Asia's country analysis and economic modelling for the Asia Pacific region. His work appears in the monthly Asia Pacific Executive Brief and the quarterly Asia Forecast Book, amongst various other reports. In addition, he presents at IMA Asia peer group sessions, public forums, and assists clients with in-house analysis and presentations. Prior to joining IMA Asia in 2009, Glenn worked on economic modelling for KPMG's consulting arm and served as the lead economist on several subscription-based products. From 2005 to 2007, he was the Asia Pacific Macroeconomist for Moody's Economy.com, a highly regarded global economics team providing analysis, data, forecasting and credit risk services to multinationals. He is a frequent commentator on Asian markets for the global financial press. Glenn holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a first class Honours Degree in Business Economics from the University of New South Wales.



Rupa Bose brings 30 years of experience in advising companies on Asian strategy to the IMA Asia team. Based in San Francisco since 2000, she is an independent consultant who has undertaken a wide range of assignments, including acting as President of Bioenterprises Asia, a life-sciences consulting company, and Chief Financial Officer of Lynk Biotechnologies, a start-up drug design company. From 1994 to 2000, Rupa headed Indian equity research and strategy for Merrill Lynch (during this time AsiaMoney ranked her amongst the "Region's Best Analysts" in 1994, 1995, and 1996) and was also equities analyst covering petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals for Paribas in Singapore. From 1988 to 1994, she worked with SRI International, producing a range of industry reports, and also worked on international development projects for a number of leading MNCs. Her advisory career started with the US firm Business International as the head of South Asia from 1981-88. During this time she ran BI’s India Country Program (a CEO peer group for leading Indian industrialists) and authored a series of book length reports on corporate strategy in South Asia. She also assisted an array of MNC clients with entry strategies for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Burma. Rupa is the author of India Business Checklists, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008. Rupa has a BA (Hons) Economics (University of Delhi), a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad), and an MBA (Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA). She is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Society and Mensa.

IMA Asia’s Advisory Board is designed to help clients with in-house presentations and to broaden and inform the debate at our peer group meetings. Advisory Board members have been chosen because they are among the best in Asia in terms of their experience, insights, and presentation skills.



Director, Enright, Scott & Associates \| Professor, School of Business, University of Hong Kong Called "one of the world's reigning strategy gurus" by the Academy of International Business, Michael Enright is a leading expert on competitiveness, regional economic development, and international business strategy. Michael joined the University of Hong Kong as Sun Hung Kai Professor of Business Administration in 1996 after six years as a professor at the Harvard Business School, where he helped to found the modern school of competitiveness analysis. He is a principal of Enright, Scott & Associates, a firm specialising in strategic consulting for governments and major corporations. He also directs the Asia-Pacific Competitiveness Program at the Hong Kong Institute for Economics and Business Strategy and was a founding director of The Competitiveness Institute (a global professional body with members in 40 nations). Michael’s work on competitiveness and on the economies of Hong Kong and China has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Far Eastern Economic, Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many others. He has appeared in more than 30 countries as an invited speaker for organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, and UNIDO. Michael received his A.B. (with honours), his M.B.A. (with distinction), and his Ph.D. (in Business Economics, Dean's Doctoral Fellow) from Harvard University.



Senior Counsellor, APCO Worldwide \| Director, Human Source Mark has an unrivalled knowledge of public affairs management in Asia. Over the last 30 years he has helped leading MNCs on strategies for government relations, corporate communications, and market entry in Asia. From 2004 to 2008, he was Associate Director-General for Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong, the investment promotion department of the Hong Kong government. His prior roles in Asia were Vice Chairman for APCO Asia, Managing Director for Warren Williams International, and Director of Japan and North Asia programs for Business International (from 1980) and The Economist Group (from 1985). He served as the 1996 Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, then the largest American chamber outside of North America. He has also been a member of three Hong Kong Government committees, including the Services Promotion Strategy Group, chaired by the Financial Secretary. He earned his BA at Carleton College and his doctorate at the University of Illinois in Japanese studies. He studied and did research at Harvard University, the University of Tokyo (as a Fullbright fellow) and the New York University Graduate School of Business. Mark is a frequent speaker on regional economic and political issues in the media and at conferences.



CEO, DSGAsia Simon is acknowledged as one of Asia’s leading macroeconomic analysts and brings 20 years experience in country analysis to our Advisory Board. He is the founder and CEO of DSGAsia Limited, an independent consultancy that offers economic and political analysis to corporates and governments. From 1994 to 1999, he was Managing Director and Chief Economist for Asia at Swiss Bank Corporation (subsequently SBC Warburg and then UBS), Hong Kong. He also held the position of Adjunct Professor of Economics and Finance at the City University of Hong Kong. Simon currently serves on the board of a number of companies and official bodies, including the Council of Advisers for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research. During his time at the helm of SBC/UBS, Simon was responsible for developing and spearheading the bank’s macroeconomic research product for the region including Japan, Non-Japan Asia and Australasia. He is generally recognised as one of the few analysts who accurately predicted the Asian economic and financial crisis. Simon trained as an actuary with William M Mercer Fraser. He subsequently moved into funds management with the United Bank of Kuwait in London before joining GT Management in Hong Kong in 1990. Simon gained his PhD in Economics from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. He also holds an MSc in Management and Finance from the University of London’s Imperial College, and a BA in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Manchester.



Managing Director, Research-Works Hugh brings detailed knowledge of China and its fast emerging corporate sector to our Advisory Board. As one of Asia’s leading advisors to global fund managers, he has unique insights into commercial trends and market performance. He is also the founding editor of the annual China Company Yearbook, which covers all listed companies in China and 13 industry sectors. Before moving to Shanghai in 2002, Hugh had established himself as a leading Asia analyst. In 1984, he started Merrill Lynch’s Southeast Asian research and went on to head Merrill Lynch’s Asian research. While there he did the research and marketing for the first Thai country fund, followed by the first two India funds, the first NYSE-listed Malaysian fund, the second Indonesian fund and worked closely with the managers of the Korea and Taiwan funds. At Merrill Lynch and then at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, where he was managing director, he pioneered sector research in Asia. He was the Malaysian financial correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review from 1979-1981, having worked for Reuters in Hong Kong from 1977- 1978. Hugh read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. Hugh is a frequent speaker on China and regional markets at investment conferences around the world.

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